(Gus Van Sant, US 2007, 85 min.)

This elegant and haunting work of art is the most recent feature from the director of Drugstore Cowboy, Good Will Hunting, and Elephant is an enigmatic mystery and an observant look at an outsider culture. In Portland, Oregon, teenaged Alex (Gabe Nevins) becomes involved in the anarchic world of skateboarders in Portland’s “Paranoid Park,” but a horrific incident at a nearby railway yard puts Gabe at the center of a criminal investigation. Told in a non-linear, fragmented style that recalls Nicolas Roeg, and beautifully photographed by acclaimed cinematographer Christopher Doyle, Van Sant’s latest is “a modestly scaled triumph without a false or wasted moment”—Manohla Dargis, The New York Times.